Archive of Our Own

YUKI

Yuki is the first to find out about them.

In retrospect, it was predictable. None of them have had much of a choice when it comes to being a silent spectator of whatever Yu and Geon have going on, but Yuki even less so. He has lived through more car rides, more conversations cut short by Yu manhandling Geon into submissions, has had to deal with more nights, kept awake or woken up by chatter and giggling than any of the others. So out of all the members, he knows best, just what Yu and Geon are like.

Yet, despite everything, he somehow failed to anticipate this.

When he walks into his bedroom and finds Yu and Geon. In their bed. Yu, half on top of Geon, their legs tangled in equally tangled sheets—and his tongue in Geon’s mouth.

They’re fully dressed, thank fuck, but it’s no less intimate for it. They’re so into it, so lost in each other, that they don’t even notice that Yuki is rooted to the spot, in the door, staring at them.

Because for a second, that’s all he does. He just … stares. Sees the little smile on their lips, sees the way their hands are intertwined on the pillow next to Geon’s head, and thinks two things:

That seeing this doesn’t feel nearly as weird as he would’ve thought—and that he should’ve seen this coming.

He’s not an idiot. He’s as aware as everyone else that they’re close, and freakishly so. Best friends, inseparable, attached at the hip, two peas in a pod. Soulmates, if the word wasn’t too sappy for them. It isn’t too sappy for Yuki. He thinks it’s a nice word, actually. It makes his heart ache a little. But then again, he’ll be caught dead before he admits it to anyone, but he is kind of a romantic. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t strike him as weird. This. Them.

Yu’s hand finds Geon’s jaw and his mouth opens further and their tongues slide against each other and Geon makes a broken little sound in the back of his throat and Yuki turns on his heel and hightails it out of the room as fast as he humanly can, which doesn’t end up being very fast at all because he has to take care to close the door without a sound. They don’t seem to see him go anyway.

Tomoya is the first to question it, when Yuki walks back into the living room a mere 3 minutes after he had announced he was going to bed.

“Huh? I thought you were going to sleep?”

It makes Haru’s eyes dart over to him for a split second, before they return to the TV screen, where he’s currently decimating poor Hyui at Mario Kart.

Yuki shrugs casually, pretends that he isn’t still processing what he just saw and his heart isn’t beating sideways in his chest. He makes for the kitchen, hiding his face in the fridge when he replies.

“Changed my mind.”

There’s a moment of silence, then Tomoya’s voice again, this time tinted with mischief.

“Ah, are Yugeon being loud again?”

Yuki cringes, both because Tomoya is more right than he knows and because he called them that. ‘Yugeon’, what the fans call them, instead of both their names separately. He only started doing it recently. It’s to tease them, of course. ‘What? It’s easier. You’re always together anyway,’ he’d said, before he’d been wrestled to the ground by a Yu whose ears were bright pink.

“Something like that,” Yuki mumbles half-heartedly.

Hyui squeals the squeal of what’s probably a red shell coming straight for him and Haru hollers victoriously. His eyes still on the screen, he half turns.

“Yuki-ah, while you’re there, can you get me a- HA! SUCK IT, KOMORI! — Can you get me a coke?”

Yuki doesn’t bother responding, because Hyui is yelling something and Haru can’t multitask on the best of days. He gets out a can of Diet Coke and a Chilsung Cider for himself and makes his way back over to the couch.

He places the coke in front of Haru, who mumbles out a quick thank you, before climbing over Tomoya’s legs and folding himself back into the back corner of the sofa he had vacated not ten minutes earlier. His eyes fix themselves on the screen, but his thoughts wander almost immediately.

Yu and Geon.

He takes a pensive sip of his cider, watches as Yoshi goes sailing off the side of the track.

It’s a surprise, but it also isn’t. They’re all close and Yuki has had close friendships before, but he has never been experienced something so … intense. Even with his best friends from back home, it’s never been like that. And sure, part of that is probably because they’re all living together, several people to one room and, on top of that, spending every waking second together. All the members are close. They all sleep in each other’s beds, none of them are shy about touching each other or falling asleep in the same bed. Geon, especially, has had a habit of asleep in other people’s beds, curled around them, ever since Yuki can remember.

But it was always different with Yu, wasn’t it. When Yuki walks into the living room to Geon and Haru cuddled up in the big pillow fort, watching Youtube, either one of them might send him a grin or a wave before going back to what they’re doing. The air in the room will remain the same, nothing will change. Hell, Yuki can even crawl into bed on Haru’s other side, and he doesn’t have to think twice about it.

But when it’s Yu and Geon, it’s like there’s an invisible wall. Or, no, not a wall, because it’s not bad, they’re not excluding anyone on purpose or anything. Haru or Tomoya crawl into bed with them all the time. It's more of a … a bubble. A bubble of something that Yuki never had the words for, but he now finds: intimacy. It passes between them, their bodies, their words, their eyes, ties them together, blends their outlines until Tomoya’s jokey way of combining their names feels kind of apt. Because they’re always together, yes, but also because they feel like a unit. When Yuki talks to Geon, it’s like he can feel Yu, or Yu’s influence, somehow. And it’s the same the other way around. They’re still them, but, again, it’s like their outlines have blended until it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

In retrospect, Yuki wonders how the hell he ended up in a room with them. He wonders, for a split second, if he’d somehow missed something, some hint that he should’ve taken, but no. It had been Geon who had asked him if he wanted a new bed, too, and Yu who had taken the measure of that room with him, to make sure they both fit. They clearly wanted him there.

And he is always there. So how did he not notice? How long has it been? When … when did they go from Yu and Geon to Yu and Geon like that. He wracks through his memories of the last weeks, but he comes up empty. He’s so used to them being, well, them that he usually doesn’t pay any more attention to them, if he can help it. Even if they don’t ever exclude him, or any of the members, for that matter, the nature of their little bubble of intimacy means that Yuki is distinctly used to feeling like a third wheel.

He can’t pinpoint the change, and it annoys him. Not because he doesn’t like that they’re kissing each other now, or that they’re boyfriends—are they? Are they boyfriends?—but because he’s curious. Nosy. He’s the one who gets woken up in the night to their giggling. He has to put up with all their giggling and yelling—he deserves to know!

Hyui wails. He lost.

Yuki sighs. It makes Tomoya look over at him, raising an eyebrow.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he says. Yuki shrugs. He wishes he could tell him, feels like he’s bursting at the seam with this knowledge, but it’s not his secret to tell. If Yu wanted anyone to know, he knows Tomoya would be the first one he would tell.

He sighs again and gives Tomoya a tired smile.

“Something like that,” he repeats, taking another sip of his cider and sinking deeper into the couch. He’ll be here for a while. Might as well get comfortable.

TOMOYA

Tomoya’s alone in the dorm when Yu comes home. He’s splayed out on the sofa, luxuriating in having it all to himself for once. There’s a random Youtube video playing on the TV and he’s playing a stupid mobile game and his mind is beautifully, blissfully empty, a state of mind that’s increasingly rare to come by these days. Not that he would dare complain. Or tell anyone. He wouldn’t want them to worry. Having a lot on his mind is only natural, he thinks, a part of the job of being the leader. And it’s also part of the job of being a good leader to not unnecessarily worry his members.

Yu calls a distant hello from the door and Tomoya calls back, though something in him immediately perks up when Yu, instead of making his way through the apartment to his room, pads up to the sofa and drops onto the floor in front of it and—says absolutely nothing.

The little spidey sense that Tomoya calls his leader intuition immediately starts tingling as he watches the back of Yu’s head. There’s an odd tenseness in his shoulders, and he keeps fidgeting like he can’t quite get comfortable, before bringing his hand up to gnaw at his fingernail.

Tomoya can’t help the little flicker of worry that alights in him. It’s not that Yu doesn’t ever get nervous, but he never gets this nervous—and not around him. So whatever is on his mind must either be weighing on him or must be very important to him.

Tomoya doesn’t say anything. If he has learned anything in the past two years, it’s that rushing someone with something on their mind only makes things harder. So he lets the Youtube video play, pretends to still be playing his game. and lets Yu work up the courage to start talking at his own pace.

No more than another minute passes before he does.

“What’re you playing?”

Tomoya’s almost impressed. He had been ready to wait; has spent almost an hour waiting for Hyui to get his voice to stop shaking enough to talk to him before. But what else did he expect from their Yu.

“Eh, just one of those idle games. It’s got zombies.”

Yu hums in acknowledgement, but doesn’t say anything else. His knee is bouncing nervously, now, his shoulders so tight he looks like he’s about to snap. Tomoya locks his phone and puts it down next to him.

The silence stretches long, longer than Tomoya expected, and evidently also longer than Yu did because he looks more and more restless before he suddenly opens his mouth and—

“I’m bisexual.”

Tomoya blinks. That’s all he does for a moment. That, and wonder if he ever somehow gave off the vibe that coming out to him would be something that required this much courage from the bravest of his members because if that’s the case then, fuck, he has some real clarifying to do. But then Yu continues speaking. He’s still sitting in front of the sofa, facing away from Tomoya, his eyes fixed somewhere on the floor.

“It’s … that’s … important, uhh … because so is Geon.”

Now, Tomoya is confused.

“Uhhh …” he starts, but then Yu suddenly whirls around to him, a grimace of horror on his face.

“Wait, that sounds really weird. I didn’t … it’s relevant, I promise. I didn’t mean it like that.” He runs a hand through his black hair, his eyes doing anything but meeting Tomoya’s, “I’m not in the business of like … outing people— God,fuck, I probably shouldn’t have said that but …”

Tomoya thinks he might have to talk him out of a panic attack any second now when Yu’s eyes finally meet Tomoya’s and the truth leaves him in one, frantic breath.

“Geonie and I are dating. Boyfriends. We’re boyfriends.”

Oh.

Oh.

“Oh!” he exclaims out loud, and there’s nothing he can do to eliminate the absolutely gleeful tone of his voice.

Yu seems to hear it, too, because he freezes. His eyes widen. It makes him look almost comical, like a spooked kitten, if a spooked kitten could blush a bright, embarrassed red.

Yu keeps staring at Tomoya and Tomoya realises he should probably say something.

“Since when?” he exclaims, a smile spreading over his face. Oh, this is so wonderful. He had barely dared to hope … it had taken them so long to see what all of them had seen from the very beginning.

“Since when …” Yu repeats dumbly, “a— a few months. Like three …,” something catches in his throat and his eyebrows pull up into a devastating look of desperation.

“Moya, you’re not mad at me? I was so fucking scared you’d be mad at me.”

Tomoya’s smile turns sad immediately.

“Why would I be mad at you?”

Yu blinks, gestures vaguely around them, before running his hand through his hair again, until it sticks up in all directions, but he doesn’t seem to find the right words, so Tomoya speaks again before he can. The urge to clarify too strong to ignore.

“Did you … did you think I would be homophobic? Because of course I wouldn’t be! After everything with Seita … and to be honest, I’m like you, too, I—”

“No,” Yu interrupts him, “nonononono. Of course not, geez— wait, did you say you, too?”

Now it’s Tomoya’s turn to blush a little. He digs a socked foot between the cushions of the couch.

“Well … yeah.”

Yu blinks. Then he smiles. He still looks a little spooked, but his smile is soft and genuine.

“That’s … that’s great, Moya. That’s really, really great. Th … thank you for telling me.”

Tomoya squirms, wants to squeal and maybe a hide a little from Yu’s typical genuineness, but he knows he can’t.

“So …” he asks, “why did you think I would be mad at you?”

Yu’s smile falls. He averts his eyes, fidgets with the cuff of his sweatpants.

“I don’t know,” he mumbles, “I’m the oldest. And it feels risky, you know. With our jobs. If something were to come out…”

Tomoya stops him.

“Nothing will come out.”

Yu grimaces.

“You say that, but if it does, then it will affect all of us, not just me and Geon.”

Tomoya shakes his head. He scoots closer until he can put a hand on Yu’s shoulder. He squeezes, hard.

“Nexz is important to all of us,” he says, fixing Yu with his eyes, “but everyone in this team also deserves to be happy outside of that. And we will all stand up for each other to make sure we can make that happen. Okay?”

He takes a deep breath. He realizes that he has never put it into this many words, this conviction of his, but it doesn’t make it any less true. All the success in the world would mean nothing to him if the members couldn’t be happy.

When Yu looks up, there are some tears glimmering along his lashline and Tomoya glares at him, raises a warning finger.

“You,” he says, poking Yu in the side of the head, which makes him giggle, “you’re are not allowed to cry. Because then I will cry. And we’re filming something tomorrow—I can’t be puffy.”

Yu buries his face in his hands, but Tomoya can see he’s laughing now. It makes something settle in him. They’re okay.

“Thank you,” Yu says, when he lifts his head. “Seriously, thank you. I don’t know what I would’ve done if …”

Again, he doesn’t finish his sentence.

“What?” Tomoya asks, grinning, “do you seriously think there’s anything I could’ve done? You couldn’t pry the two of you apart with a crowbar, let alone a stern talking to. I’m pretty sure if I told Geon he could no longer sleep with you, he would cry and go on a hunger strike or something. There’s no world in which you two can be kept apart.”

Yu, who had been getting progressively redder with every word, finally folds in on himself, hiding his face in his arms.

“God, stop,” he groans, “I get it.”

Tomoya cackles. If Yu lets him tease him, then everything really is all right in the world.

“Is that …,” Yu starts, before hesitating. He lifts his head, and suddenly looks very shy. “Is that how you see us?”

Tomoya teasingly raises an eyebrow, but his tone is gentle when he speaks.

“Is that a real question? I have never heard something less surprising than that you two finally figured it out.”

Yu ducks his head, letting his forehead thud against the sofa cushions next to him. Tomoya thinks that if he could, he would blush even harder, if he wasn’t already bright red all the way down his neck.

Yu sighs. When he looks up at Tomoya he looks so vulnerable, Tomoya’s heart twinges.

“Moya … I … I like him so much. I’m so happy.”

Tomoya’s eyes prick before he can stop it. He can see it in Yu’s eyes. The love, the happiness. All of it. And it looks good on him.

He smiles. His voice wobbles precariously when he speaks.

“You look happy. Both of you.”

Yu smiles. It’s shy and also a little watery and Tomoya thinks that the makeup noonas will just have to deal with his puffy eyes tomorrow—when they’re saved by the chime of the front door and then, moments later, none other than Geon skipping into the living room and flopping himself right onto Yu’s lap, whose arms wind around him immediately, pulling him in until there’s no space between them and he can bury his face in Geon’s back.

Geon lets him, only pats Yu's arm around him, and smiles at Tomoya.

“What were you guys talking about?”

HYUI

“No. No. Come on, you can’t do this to me,” Hyui howls. There are honest to god tears in his eyes and he doesn’t even care how humiliating it would be to cry over this.

Haru, the uncaring bearer of the bad news, shrugs, and Tomoya claps a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Hyui, it’s the rules. It’s your turn.”

Hyui just about holds back from stomping his foot.

It’s their rule, for fuck’s sake, why can’t they change it?! This stupid rule they put in place because people kept forgetting about practice or recording and Yuki had been the one to go and find them one too many times and had forced them to set up a rotation. So it’s not just him but everyone has to take on the annoyance of blindly running around searching the building when someone’s inevitably late and doesn’t pick up their phone. Which happens less, now that they’re all aware of how annoying it is to have to go on a wild goose chase for a missing member, but still happens all too often. Except it’s never Hyui who’s late because he, unlike everyone else apparently, knows how Google calendar alerts work.

He fixes Tomoya with a withering stare.

“How did yours even count?! Last week. When you went to find Seita. You literally walked out the door, and he was right there.”

Tomoya shrugs.

“I got lucky. Maybe you will, too.”

Hyui’s eyes turn nothing short of murderous.

“It’s Yu and Geon. If Yu knew we had practice he would be here already. Which means they could be anywhere.”

Tomoya is an evil betrayer and Hyui hates him because he just shrugs. Though he looks a little guilty when Hyui turns and stomps out of the room without sparing them another glance. He counts his one blessing, which is that he’s at a Korean company because it means he can cuss them out in Japanese all the way out the door.

It’s just been one of those days, okay? It’s been a really shit day. While getting ready this morning, he’d dropped one of his favourite earrings, and it had rolled under the vanity. He had spilled coffee on his jeans in the car. And when he went to lunch, Han Jisung had come into the cafeteria just as Hyui was leaving and didn’t even look his way. So not only are his jeans stained, and he has a bruise on the back of his head where he’d smacked it on the window after fishing in the dust for his earring, he also feels pathetic because his big stupid celebrity crush was too busy being handsome and cool with his equally handsome and cool friends to see him.

And now he has to do this. Walk around the entire building, with its hundreds of rooms, trying to find his members. It’s even worse because it’s Yu. Yu, who’s usually so on top of things. It feels like betrayal, too, somehow. Everyone’s betraying him today, the universe most of all.

He starts at Soul Cup, then the cafeteria, but neither Yu nor Geon (nor Han Jisung for that matter) are anywhere to be found. He shares an awkward elevator ride with a couple of people from marketing, and checks the recording studio reservations. No luck there. Only when he checks the smaller dance practice room reservations another floor up does he finally find them. Well, their names. As luck would have it, their practice room is at the very end of a very long hallway. Truly, everything is against Hyui today.

The door is half open when he approaches. Their next track is blasting from the speakers, and he can hear Yu counting the steps.

He stops in the door.

They must be mid-run. Yu is counting, exaggerating his moves, his eyes glued to Geon in the mirror who is following the choreo well but frowning. At least Hyui’s not the only one who’s having a bad day then.

Geon’s not a bad dancer by a long shot. But he lacks the experience Yu and the others have, and that makes him slower on the uptake and uncertain—and that uncertainty shows in his moves. Geon knows that and that’s why he works twice as hard. And Yu’s always right there with him.

Hyui envies him sometimes. He wishes he had that. Someone reliable like that. Someone who’s always on his side, someone to be his whole self with. Someone as stable and protective as Yu. Hyui thinks he would be able to breathe a little easier if he had a Yu, and he wants it more than he can safely admit to himself. Because he’s not meant to want that. Not the way he does anyways. It includes a lot of things boys should not want from other boys.

He watches with a twinge in his heart as the song comes to an end and Yu’s eyes never leave Geon through the mirror.

Yu raises his eyebrows expectantly. He’s breathing hard.

“Good, right? That was good!”

Geon doesn’t seem to think so. His brows are still knit tight, his bottom lip worried between his teeth. He makes a pitiful image. Yu seems to agree because he laughs gently and turns, takes the few steps it takes him to reach Geon in a run and winds his arms around Geon’s waist from the back.

Geon’s arms come to rest over his immediately. There’s a little smile that fights its way onto his face as he’s being swayed back and forth in Yu’s hold. Hyui can’t help the envy that stings, deep in his chest, as he watches Geon melt into Yu’s touch with a little giggle.

Hyui expects Yu to let go, to make a joke, to break the moment, and is already raising his hand to knock and draw their attention to himself when Yu, instead, lowers his head, murmurs something Hyui can’t hear, and places one, two, three open-mouthed kisses right against the skin where Geon’s neck meets his shoulder.

Hyui freezes. He blinks. That’s … is that allowed? That doesn’t seem friendly, that—

His train of thought implodes when Geon turns in Yu’s arms with another little giggle and leans up just as Yu leans down and their lips meet.

Something in Hyui’s chest clenches and he stumbles back. His head whips left, then right, trying to see if anyone else is here, if anyone else saw. But there’s no one around.

His chest is tight. Too tight. He makes it a couple steps down the hallway before he has to stop. He slumps against the wall, then down. He’s shaking when he hugs his knees to his chest.

He’s having a panic attack. He’s having a fucking panic attack.

His head falls forward.

In. Out. With his eyes squeezed shut, the light from the hallway shielded by his arms, it comes a little easier but barely.

There’s a big ball of hurt, right in the centre of his chest, and it hurts. It hurts so fucking bad.

His breath hiccups out of him painfully.

It keeps playing in front of his eyes. The kiss. How easily their lips had found each other. The comfortable confidence of Yu’s hands. Like they do it all the time. Like they kiss each other all the time.

His breath hiccups and he realises he’s crying.

They had just kissed each other. Like it was nothing. Like they weren’t two boys kissing each other. The door was half open, anyone could’ve seen. Hyui saw! They’re lucky it was him and not someone else! It could’ve been anyone. It’s so careless. Dangerous. he expected better of Yu, of all people. Yu who’s always the most responsible of all of them.

He has to stop thinking about how easily they could’ve been discovered because it only exacerbates the fear and panic that claw at his heart until his breathing comes even shorter and he has to thump a fist against the side of his head to dispel the thoughts.

But the image doesn’t go away. He keeps seeing them in his mind’s eye. His stomach churns. Yu had touched him so naturally. He had seen Geon’s unhappiness and hadn’t been scared of it. Hadn’t looked away, or ignored it like it wasn’t his business. No, he had looked straight at it, had taken it in his gentle hands and held it. He’d known exactly what to do, just how to touch Geon, what to say to make him smile again. To make it all okay.

Hyui is keenly aware of how pathetic he is when he sobs.

Fuck. He didn’t realise how bad it had gotten. His stupid little crush on Yu. He’s not delusional—he knows that it’s about Yu a little bit, of course, but that it’s mostly about what Yu represents. That he isn’t so much craving Yu, specifically, as much as everything he is. Safety, comfort, warmth. A place to rest his heavy head, someone who he doesn’t have to hide from, someone who doesn’t flinch away from him when he’s fragile and broken.

He knows Yu can be, and often is like that for him, at times. Knows Yu cares for him, because he tells him so, and because he always keeps an eye on him, checks in when Huyi is quiet, makes sure he eats when he’s been picking at his food, and even hugs him when he can tell Hyui needs it. But it’s not the same. It’s not the same. Because he doesn’t want Hyui the way Huyi finds himself wanting Yu sometimes. And it’s not even because Hyui’s a boy. No, he wants a boy, just not Hyui. Maybe it would’ve hurt less if Yu was just straight.

But he’s not. Yu wants Geon. That much had been clear. More than clear. Palms splayed over Geon’s stomach, his lips on the dip of his neck. Hyui watched the way they parted around Geon’s skin and felt it like it was his own skin. The wave of pure, unadulterated desire that had crashed through him makes him feel sick.

The jealousy burns, but it doesn’t choke him like the fear does. It distracts him until his tears stop and his breathing starts to settle.

The fear has been haunting him for years. The fear of what he knows he is but what he can’t shake the feeling that he can never be. The same voice as always shimmers through his mind. His mom’s voice. “I don’t mind if they exist, I just don’t think it’s right.” Such calm words, anyone would say she was being tolerant—but Hyui felt them like a bomb going off in his chest. He loves his mom. She’s his rock. If she thinks he’s wrong—he couldn’t live with it.

He knows there’s a whole world out there that’s different, so many people who think differently, who are different like him. And he knows his members are different. They had been so kind when Seita came out to them. But it was different with Seita. Everyone had already kinda known about Seita, and Seita is discreet and calm and confident. Hyui is none of those things. He’s obvious and nervous and needy, and that’s bad, especially when he’s obvious and nervous and needy about boys. It’s how it’s always been. It’s why Reo broke up with him in 8th grade. Hyui was too needy, he had said. He made it too obvious, that they would kiss after school behind the slides of the old playground where no kids ever went anymore. Reo said it was pathetic, to be able to see how much Hyui wanted it. Hyui hadn’t even been able to argue with him. He’d always wanted it so, so badly.

After what feels like forever, but can’t have been more than a few minutes, Hyui finally manages to lift his head. His face feels warm, wet with tears and his chest is hot and tight, still, but it’s loosening. He can already feel it setting. That bone deep exhaustion that always comes after a panic attack.

He wonders how long it’s been. He pulls out his phone. There’s a text from Tomoya, asking him if he’d found them yet. Hyui wants to laugh.

It’s only been 10 minutes since he left the others upstairs. It feels like a lifetime.

He’s still trying to gather his strength to get up when the last door at the end of the hallway opens, and he hears Yu and Geon’s voices.

Hyui’s heart drops. He curses, brings his sleeve up to his face, tries to wipe away the tears, but it’s too late. The voices stop and then there are footsteps hurrying down the hallway towards him.

Geon reaches him first. He falls to his knees in front of Hyui. His palms find Hyui’s knees. His eyes are big and so full of worry when he dips his head down to meet Hyui’s eyes.

“Hey, Hyui, hey, what’s wrong?” he asks. His voice is so gentle, so full of worry. “Did you have a panic attack?”

Yu sinks down on Hyui’s other side. He slings a warm, heavy arm around Hyui’s shoulders and tugs him into his side.

Geon’s eyes are so full of warmth, and Yu’s chest is so solid and grounding, the arm around his shoulders so soothing—Hyui breaks.

The tears come back at full force. He bites back a sob and nods.

Yu’s arm tightens around him, pulls him closer until Hyui tips sideways and his head lands against his chest. It’s the nicest thing Hyui has felt in weeks. He cries harder.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay.” Yu murmurs against his hair. His hand rubs up and down Hyui’s arm, squeezing him tightly. Geon’s hands are still massaging his calves, his eyes never leaving Hyui. There are too many feelings in his chest. Sadness. Yearning. And guilt. So much guilt. He wishes the ground would swallow him up.

“S-sorry,” he mumbles, and it comes out all clogged up and awful, “c-came to f-find you because you were l-late to p-practice but … got overwhelmed.”

Yu hums softly.

“Shitty day?” Oh, Yu has no idea. Hyui just nods. “Was ’Moya giving you a hard time again?”

Hyui’s heart twinges. He feels a little more guilty when he nods again, but it’s not like he can tell them the truth.

“Only a little,” he mumbles. He feels Yu’s little laugh more than he can hear it, the sound reverberating through his chest. For a second, he wonders how often Geon gets to hear that sound. Probably often. Geon gets to make Yu laugh and then feel the sound of his heart beating just for him. Hyui aches.

Geon, oblivious to Hyui’s traitorous thoughts, smiles at him, wide and mischievous, and wags his eyebrows ridiculously. It makes Hyui smile, despite himself.

“Oh, he’ll feel so guilty,” Geon singsongs. It's clear that he’s playing it up, to make Hyui laugh, but Hyui can feel nothing but gratitude. “He’ll feel so bad when he sees you. Like a sad little mouse.”

“Geon-ah,” Yu chides, and Hyui hears it. He wonders how he never heard it before. That tone. The intimacy of it.

But Geon’s words do make him laugh. He huffs it against Yu’s chest and watches as Geon’s eyes go wide with pride, flicking up to Yu’s with a satisfied little glint.

Hyui was worried that Yu would let him go if he laughed, if he showed a sign of feeling better, but he doesn’t. He continues to hold Hyui, his hand still rubbing up and down Hyui’s arm.

Then, Yu turns his head, and Hyui feels his lips, pressing a kiss into his hair.

Hyui squeezes his eyes shut. Everything hurts, he doesn’t even know where to begin to untangle it all. But he has them. Yu’s so gentle with him. So is Geon. He loves them both. He loves them so much. He’s hurting. It’s hurting him, somehow, their happiness, if just because it seems to come so easily to them. But at the end of the day, the thing he wants most of all, for all his members, is that they’re happy. And there’s no denying it. Yu and Geon, they’re each other’s person. Hyui might have a crush on Yu, but he knows he couldn’t give Yu what he needs—what Geon gives him. And that’s okay. He’ll get over it. Probably. Eventually. He’ll be fine somehow.

He nuzzles deeper into Yu’s chest and feels Geon settle in next to him, his head coming to rest against Hyui’s back, an arm slung around his waist.

He’ll be fine.

SEITA & HARU

It’s Friday, and they’re all sitting around the dinner table and Geon is happy.

Promotions are done, which means no more early mornings and late nights. Schedules, sure, but less pressure. Less eyes. Less dialling up his personality to a million, less having to do the best he can all the time lest he miss a precious opportunity to get more eyes on their music.

And dieting is done. At least for a few weeks. And right now, his stomach is full of his favourite food—which is no longer a specific dish, but has, over the last two years, become literally just anything Yu cooks. It tastes like home and nourishes him like no other food does, and it fills him with this low, buzzing warmth. Love he thinks. Everything about Yu is love.

Oh, he’s sappy today. He’s full and sleepy, and his eyes keep drifting back to Yu, who’s sitting next to him. Geon had insisted on it; had whined loudly and annoyingly until Yu gave Haru a pat on the back and moved around the table and sat next to Geon instead. He should’ve known, Geon thinks, a little pouty. Yu knows how he gets when he’s tired, and when they haven’t seen each other all day. He gets clingy. Clingy and needy, heart fizzing over with affection and the need to crawl into Yu’s ribcage and make himself a home there.

Someone’s talking and Yu is listening, but Geon isn’t. His leg is slung over Yu’s, Yu’s hand resting gently on his thigh. Geon is staring at Yu’s side profile, at the pretty pout of his lips, at the devastating straight line of his nose, his eyelashes that flutter so softly when he blinks. His hair, always so soft under Geon’s fingertips, is a little longer right now, and Geon loves it. Right now, he can’t tear his eyes away from how it’s cradling the shell of Yu’s ear.

He reaches out before he can think better of it, but he can’t even pretend like he cares. It’s just them, after all. The members. And everyone is looking at Tomoya, anyways.

The tip of his finger finds Yu’s ear, tracing the shell of it until he reaches his earlobe, traces the earring there, too.

Yu barely jumps at the sudden touch, only throws a quick glance his way and smiles. But then, Geon lets his finger trail down, down the side of Yu’s neck, fingertips ghosting over Yu’s sensitive skin, and it finally makes Yu turn, makes him look at Geon and Geon can’t help it. He smiles. Big and dopey, with all his stupid big feelings written all over his face.

He can watch in real time as Yu’s eyes soften, as they slide over Geon’s face like he, too, can’t get enough of him.

“Tired?” Yu asks, so quietly only Geon can hear.

Geon nods. His hand finds Yu’s, resting on his thigh under the table, and laces their fingers together. He smiles harder.

“But happy,” he whispers, like it’s a secret, and Yu’s face splits into a grin.

There’s nothing else to say, so Yu brings a hand up to scratch under Geon’s chin and turns back. Geon’s still smiling when he lets his head fall onto Yu’s shoulder. He comes to rest there, and his eyes flutter closed for a moment.

When he blinks them open again a second later, his eyes meet Seita’s, boring into his across the table.

Seita’s expression is surprised, but only a little. When he meets Geon’s eyes, he blinks, then flicks his eyes between him and Yu, before giving raising his eyebrows in a wordless question. Geon blushes. Yu said it would be fine, so he nods, and Seita’s eyes widen impossibly before they crinkle into a smile. Good, he mouths, and then very cute with an approving nod that makes Geon giggle. He can’t help the giddy pride in his chest at being allowed to tell someone. Seita’s eyes widen impossibly before they crinkle into a smile.

Seita gives him another smile before he turns back to whoever is talking. Geon lets his eyes flutter closed again. Under the table, Yu’s thumb swipes over the back of his hand, back and forth and back and forth. The voices around the table keep talking, but Geon can feel himself drifting off.

He feels Yu’s head move, feels an arm wind around his waist, before there’s the soft pressure of lips on his hair. The kiss quick and soft and sweet and Geon can’t help but lean into it, nuzzling further into Yu’s shoulder until his nose brushes against his collarbone and he turns his head and presses his lips there. It’s just a little peck, lips against cotton, but he had forgotten one very important thing.

That he’s sitting at the table with all of the members and that Inoue Haru has a loud mouth and always speaks before he thinks.

His voice slices through Geon’s sleepy trance like a knife.

“Wait, HUH?!”

Geon jolts upright, nearly slamming his head into Yu’s jaw with the movement.

He finds the entire table staring back at them.

Yu’s grip on his hand has become iron.

A quick survey of the members makes Geon think it’s all not so bad. Seita isn’t looking at them, but at everyone else, mostly like he’s trying to read the room, though he also looks like he’s ready to jump to their defence immediately. It’s so touching Geon almost cries, and he vows to give Seita the biggest hug later. Yuki, next to Yu, is looking at them curiously, before his eyes go to Tomoya, who’s staring straight at Yu, his brows furrowed, something passing between them that Geon can’t read. Hyui, on Tomoya’s left, is stock-still, and so pale that Geon can’t help but do a double-take. It makes something in him roil uncomfortably. He had been the same when Seita came out to them. Frozen. Silent. Geon feels a little sick at the possibility of what it might mean, but he has other worries right now.

Haru, across from them, has the decency to have slapped his hand over his mouth the moment he realised the damage he just did. He looks genuinely apologetic, downturned eyes pleading, as he looks from Geon to Yu to the way the rest of the table is staring at them, the tips of his ears burning a bright, angry pink.

Geon turns to Yu, and startles. Yu’s pale. His eyes are wide and he looks … scared. Something awfully protective flares in Geon’s guts. He feels the sudden urge to protect Yu. He sits up. He takes his leg from Yu’s lap and leans forward, his arm reaching over Yu’s lap protectively, until he’s as much between him and the rest of the table as he can be.

He scowls at Haru.

“Is there a problem?” he snaps, making both Hyui and Yuki’s heads whip over to him in surprise.

Haru’s eyes widen, too. He shakes his head. “No, no. ‘Course not.”

“You sure about that?” Geon counters immediately, probably too harshly, but the nerves and the protectiveness in his chest make him want to bite. He hasn’t fought anyone since that one asshole in 10th grade, but he thinks he’s willing to try again. He was winning, then, before the teacher broke them apart, he can win now.

Haru, to his credit, doesn’t hold it against him.

“I am, I promise, Geon-ah. I was just surprised, okay? Is there … are you two …?”

Haru’s cheeks are very pink now, as he motions between him and Yu. Geon’s still scowling, but he can feel a blush rising to his cheeks as well.

A familiar hand slithers up his spine and slides into the hair at the back of Geon’s head. Yu caresses his head, scratches at his scalp in a soothing motion that makes Geon’s eyelids flutter, and he blushes harder when he realises that everyone’s still watching him.

He folds backwards, though his arm stays crossed in front of Yu’s chest, hand resting on Yu’s lap.

Yu answers first.

“Yeah,” he says, “yeah. We are. Together.”

Haru’s eyes light up. He smiles, tentatively, but genuinely. “That’s … that’s great! That’s great right ?” he asks, looking around at the others as if looking for confirmation.

Yu is still petting his head, and it’s making Geon feel a little too soft on the inside, but still, he looks around. Everyone’s looking at them now, even Hyui, who’s still pale and looks upset, his eyes glued to where Yu’s hand is in Geon’s hair. It can’t be, right? Hyui has always been so sweet. He wouldn’t … he wouldn’t be homophobic, right? Right? He’s so close with Seita, too …

Yu’s voice rips him out of his thoughts.

“Is it?”

His voice is so small, more hesitant than Geon has ever heard it, and it makes him pull back to look at Yu. Yu blinks at him, flustered, before his eyes dart around the table.

Haru looks at him, then smiles, but there’s some worry in his voice when he speaks.

“Of course it is, Yu. Why wouldn’t it be?”

Everyone else nods or hums their agreement—everyone except Hyui, Geon can’t help but notice.

Yu shrugs, runs the hand that is not buried in Geon’s hair through his own. One of his nervous ticks. Geon’s attention immediately zeroes in on him.

Yu meets his eyes, holds his gaze like a lifeline for a second, before he looks back at Haru.

“I don’t know … I was scared you’d be mad at me.” Then, like an afterthought, he adds, “at us.”

Haru’s brows furrow.

“Mad at you? Why would we be mad at you.”

Geon can tell that he’s genuinely horrified. Tomoya, whose eyes haven’t left Yu since Haru opened his mouth, now gestures at Haru.

“See. I told you.”

It’s the gentlest I-told-you-so Geon has ever heard.

Haru’s head swivels to him. “You knew?” Haru asks.

Tomoya nods, his eyes darting back to Yu, something passing between them again.

“Yeah. He told me.”

“You could’ve told all of us,” Haru says, nodding to himself. His tone leaves no room for argument.

“Yeah, maybe then I wouldn’t have had to find out about it the way I did. I’m scarred for life,” Yuki throws out suddenly, from the left, and it’s like the bubble of tension in the room pops like a balloon, loudly, and all at once.

Geon screeches, so does Haru, Seita’s head falls into his hands.

“Oh God, what did you see?” Geon somehow manages to ask. He notes that he should probably feel more horrified than he does. Instead, he only feels curious. And a little bit giddy.

Yuki sighs, long-suffering. Like an old man, he picks up his coke and takes a swig. Tomoya is giggling like an idiot.

“Let’s just say at least you were dressed.”

Everyone else laughs or screams. Geon giggles. He wonders when it was. What they were doing. His belly does a little swoop.

The chattering continues, and, as the topic seems to be done, slowly veers away from them together. When Yuki accuses Haru of high treason a couple weeks ago when he had fallen asleep on the couch and woken up without a pillow, and everyone is distracted, Geon takes the opportunity to turn to Yu.

At first glance, Yu seems perfectly fine. He’s still a little pale, but there’s a faint smile on his lips, and he seems to be listening to Yuki and Haru argue. But Geon knows him too well. He can see the tenseness in his shoulders, the little curl of anxiety at the corner of his mouth. The way his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes and his gaze wavers a little when he meets Geon’s eyes.

Geon hums softly. He slides his arm around the back of Yu’s chair, places a gentle palm on Yu’s back.

He knows that there is some part of Yu that believes, somehow, that the others have a right to be mad at him. He’s known it since the afternoon when he had found Yu and Tomoya in the living room with red-rimmed eyes. He’d felt it in the way Yu had curled around him, holding him so tightly, as if he was scared Geon would disappear.

In the intervening weeks he has asked the question at least five times and Yu had evaded it every single time. Geon, not wanting to push, had let him.

But Yu’s hurting. In the face of their little family’s blessing, he’s still hurting, and Geon can’t take it anymore. So he asks the question again. It requires no preamble. Yu knows what’s talking about immediately.

“Why?” he murmurs into the space between them.

The sad little smile that takes over Yu’s face breaks Geon’s heart.

He shrugs.

“I’m the oldest. You’re my family. I gotta take care of you.”

Geon’s brows furrow.

“What does that have to do with anything?” he asks.

He hadn’t noticed that the room around them had gone quiet until Seita’s voice suddenly cuts in with a gentle, but steadfast clarity.

“That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard, Yu-ah,” he says, “why would that make you any less capable of doing that?”

Yu flushes, drops his gaze to his lap. Geon can tell that the sudden attention is making him horribly uncomfortable, but he finally wants to know what’s going on in Yu’s head, and he thinks Seita, always full of so much wisdom, might be the best person to coax it out of him.

“I don’t know,” Yu mumbles, trying to evade answering again, but everyone’s looking at him, including Seita, whose eyes don’t waver.

Finally, Yu sighs.

“This … this should be my top priority, right? I should put all my energy into this.” He gestures vaguely around them, then at each of them. There’s something even more heartbreaking in his eyes when he says, “I want to be there for you. To protect you. I was scared you would think of me as distracted. Less there for you somehow. Less … reliable.”

Haru scoffs, indignant.

“As if we could ever think that.”

Seita shushes him, but it’s gentle. Not for the first time, Geon marvels at Seita. Seita and his old soul and his gentleness and his seemingly boundless wisdom.

“Yu-yah,” Seita calls quietly. He waits for Yu to look up at him. Yu looks devastatingly soft and somehow younger. Geon’s hand smooths over his back soothingly, almost on instinct.

“You’re our rock. You are literally the reason why we haven’t lost our minds or burned the dorm down, yet. And there’s not a day that goes by where we don’t feel that. But why,” Seita asks, “why do you think we would ever want you to deny yourself something for our sake?”

Yu doesn’t respond.

“Yu.” Seita repeats his name again, with emphasis, leaning forward a little. “You can’t pour from an empty cup. You’re always there for us. Why would we want to deprive you of having someone who’s always there for you? Why would we not want you to be happy?”

For a second, there’s complete silence. Yu’s eyes are wide, staring at Seita. Seita stares back, still just as gentle, and just as firm. His words hang in the air with a kind of finality.

Geon looks at Yu. He looks at Yu and sees him, through Seita’s words. The guy he’s fallen in love with. Their hyung. Their Yu. How strong he is, yet how gentle. Always kind, patient, even when Geon gets on his last nerve. There’s nothing he doesn’t do for them—whether it’s staying up late to listen to Geon’s worries, even when his eyes are drooping, or holding Hyui when he has a panic attack, or even staying late with Tomoya to go over choreography even though he’s been awake for 24 hours. And that hasn’t changed. He’s the same Yu as he was before Geon kissed him in their bed that one night.

Geon is convinced, deep, in the bottom of his heart, that Yu could never let them down. Because he knows firsthand just how much love Yu is capable of. There’s an endless store of love in Yu’s heart.

Geon smiles. His hand slides up, finds the side of Yu’s neck. He smooths a thumb over Yu’s jaw. Yu leans into the touch, almost imperceptibly, and Geon’s heart flutters.

Seita’s words roll through his mind. Why would we want to deprive you of having someone who’s always there for you?

For a moment, he falters.

Is he? Is he that person?

Half the time he feels like he annoys Yu more than anything. But it’s a part of their love language, right? But maybe … maybe he isn’t the right person. Not what Yu needs.

“Are you, Yu?” Seita asks. “Are you happy?”

Yu’s cheeks darken, his eyes flickering from Seita to the other members, then finally to Geon. He can barely meet Geon’s eyes. He’s embarrassed, Geon thinks.

Then, with a little jerk of his head and a squeeze to Geon’s thigh under the table, Yu nods. His eyes flicker up to Geon almost shyly, before returning to Seita. “I- I am,” he mumbles.

And Geon remembers—all the days when nothing but the tenseness in Yu’s shoulders gives away how stressed he is, and how Geon has learned to dissolve it with a few well-placed jokes. How Yu tends to seek him out when he’s feeling restless, how he has learned that kissing behind Yu’s ear makes him melt into a hug and that some days the simple act of Geon washing his hair can bring a smile back to his face.

Most days, Geon still feels like a kid. He doesn’t feel like an adult, doesn’t feel like he’s 20 and has a job and a number of fans that look up to him. Hell, he doesn’t even dare think about all of those responsibilities most days, because he’s sure that if he did, he would crawl into bed and never come out.

But this—this feels different. This is a responsibility he feels equal to. It’s one he feels honoured to have—to have been given it by the best guy he knows. The one he secretly looks up to more than anyone. He’s proud of being able to be something to him, proud to be able to give something back to the person who gives him so much. Love, safety, laughter, happiness.

He’s proud, in short, to be, in Seita’s, and maybe the other members’ eyes, Yu’s.

“Good,” Seita says, but Geon doesn’t turn around. He can’t stop looking at Yu, now, his heart feeling like it has swelled to triple its size in his chest.

“Now, please,” Seita sighs, with a little roll of his eyes and a wave of his hand, “kiss your boy. You’ve been eyeing each other all night and he looks like he’s about to explode.”

Yu cringes, ducks his head, andGeon makes an offended sound that he only half means. He knows he wears his feelings on his sleeves.

He’s about to turn to Seita to tell him in no uncertain terms that he’s, in fact, not about to explode and that he’s very capable of waiting, thank you very much, when he feels an arm around his waist and then a familiar, warm press of lips on his cheek.

They’re gone as fast as they appeared, and he whips his head over to Yu, who’s still blushing and can barely meet Geon’s eyes.

The members are still cooing, clucking and squealing ’cute!’when Geon’s hand fists into the front of Yu’s t-shirt, pulls him in and kisses him properly.

He doesn’t know what gives him the confidence, in the end. If it’s relief, at everyone’s reaction, or pride, at Seita’s words; defiance, in the face of Hyui’s weird behaviour—which he promises himself he will come back to—or the fact that Geon has been aching for a kiss from Yu since this morning when he didn’t get more than a peck on the cheek as Yu rushed out of the bathroom just as Geon rushed in, everyone already late to their first schedule. But he has waited long enough.

The cooing and squealing turns into screams, hooting, hollering, a level of noise that will surely earn them another passive aggressive post-it note from the people living next door, but Geon doesn’t care.

Yu’s lips are soft against his. They move with an easy, practiced familiarity, despite the audience, and they part easily, when Geon’s thumb digs into the hinge of his jaw.

Geon’s chair squeaks across the floor when Yu drags it closer in a show of strength that makes blood rush south so fast it makes Geon dizzy and the room explode into more screaming.

Yu licks into his mouth and Haru screeches the loudest he has all nights.

“AH! I saw tongue, I saw tongue!! Enough!! Enough!!!!”

When Yu’s teeth sink into his bottom lip and Tomoya starts yelling for Yuki to look away to preserve his innocence, Geon can feel Yu’s smile against his own.